The Double Hook

The whole book reads like a rumour from which you can only infer. To me this is the most terrifyingly beautiful literature.

This small book, 118 pages, isn't much longer than a short story but it sure packs a lot into that small size. On the back it reads "In spare, allusive prose, Sheila Watson charts the destiny of a small, tightly knit community nestled in the British Columbia interior." That is a very good description.

The setting is the Cariboo region of BC which, coincidentally, I visited for the first time this year. Only about a dozen people live in the valley scattered in a handful of houses. There is very little interaction with the outside world especially for the women. The mother of three of the inhabitants is seen by a number of people fishing along the creek one morning. But as the day goes along and a storm breaks the question arises as to show more where she is. The other thread of the story concerns Lenchen who has left her mother's home to find her lover who is the son of the old woman. The people move back and forth from one place to another, sometimes interacting, sometimes missing each other. Watching over all of them is Coyote, that "trickster and demi-god and buffoon embodying the motley nature of existence itself" (quote from afterword).

This is a book that has to be read very carefully as every word has a meaning, and sometimes more than one. Even the title has a double meaning. "He doesn't know you can't catch the glory on a hook and hold on to it. That when you fish for the glory you catch the darkness too. That if you hook twice the glory you hook twice the fear. That Coyote plotting to catch the glory for hiself is fooled and everyday fools others." (p. 50)

A book to ruminate over for a long time. I would recommend it to others who like to challenge themselves occasionally. show less

A beautifully written novel, with the spirit of Faulkner hovering in its vicinity, filled with allusion, while remaining spare. Fishing is a key motif, with the reader told in the opening inscription that "when you fish for the glory, you catch the darkness, too." And the flavour is immediately apparent on the first page with "James walking away. The old lady falling. There under the jaw of the roof. In the vault of the bed loft. Into the shadow of death. Pushed by James's will. By James's hand. By James's words. This is my day. You'll not fish today." We encounter unspeakable cruelty and death. Kindness redeems. Theft and deception countered by faith. Larger than life canvas painted with the power of darkness, inexplicable show more suffering,despair and destruction but in the end redemption. Like a medieval morality play, it ends with optimism. It reverberates with folk tale while echoing Greek tragedy. show less

Sparse prose, yet beautifully written, lets the reader fill in the blanks. In the style of Flannery O'Connor dark and ambiguous, and mercifully short.

really didn't like this but it was very short so I finished it.